


A Considerable Amount of Paperwork

by Kahvi



Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all over bar the paperwork. After the explosion, Nicholas does his best to keep going.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Considerable Amount of Paperwork

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vomit_bunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vomit_bunny/gifts).



> To my recipient, for a fantastic prompt and my beta for eternal inspiration and cheerleading.

There actually is a book. Nicholas has read it, and re-read it, until he knows most of it by heart, and exactly how and where to look up everything else. You can not, as Danny asked, gleefully, genuinely throw it at someone, lest you wanted to risk taking someone's eye out, but it could still be used as a weapon.

A very different sort of weapon to an automatic rifle, but there it is.

The thing about paperwork is, normally, it all sort of blends together, and you have to concentrate to keep track of what's what.

This isn't normally.

Nicholas makes a list, which he's good at. Then, he cross-references it. Then, he cross-references it again, because it turns out making sure that no officer is set up to process someone to whom they are related or with which they are familiar is a more or less impossible task. In the end, he just gives up, drops the papers in a big pile in the breakroom, and lets everyone have at it. All cheer. Until the the bit with the shooting and the explosion, of course.

That hasn't happened yet, though. Right now, Danny is pouring over the report one of the Andies filed for 'cousin Elsie', giving them no end of grief for getting her age wrong, which is funny enough for everyone to join in, no one caring that the crime with which she was charged, as Nicholas reads over Danny's shoulder, was arson and attempted murder by poultry. Nicholas laughs too, even though he has no idea what they're talking about. It feels good. Everything feels _really_ good, just before the explosion.

They make it into a game. Neither one of them decides to do it, it just sort of happens. Danny calls out a name, and Nicholas has to pick the right mug shot and the right papers, matching name to person and charge. Then they swap, because Nicholas gets all of them. Then they swap back, because Danny keep getting them wrong on purpose, which is funny as hell, but gets them absolutely nowhere. It's going to take all night, but that's OK. Everything is OK. Even Doris's homemade cakes are vaguely palatable up until the point where they're blown into fragments and embedded into the rapidly collapsing walls.

That's the point where it all goes wrong, really.

 

Nicholas stares at what used to be the station. He'd imagined that they would have cleaned it up, somehow, but it's only been two days. It feels like ten. Nineteen. Maybe fifty. It's not though; the air still smells like burning.

There’s a bit of wind, but nothing serious. Old Mrs. Carlyle walks past, her dog more senile than her, both politely greeting him as he sits down at the edge of the rubble. Nicholas wonders if either of them even noticed anything different. It’s a bit like that, in Sandford. Walking through town, it was like nothing had ever happened. People calmly sweeping up glass and bits of splintered wood from the streets, giving him a nod as he walked by. People hanging signs back up and drinking coffe and pushing prams and yelling at their husbands on gaudy mobiles. Kids eating Cornettos. Just life, going on. Nicholas picks at the edge of a piece of concrete with his foot, and draws in a deep breath. Normal. Well, this never was normal, was it?

Black clouds entirely fails to appear on the horizon as Nicholas starts sorting through the debris. The remnants of the filing cabinet are easily found; all bent metal and burnt paper. Not _all_ burnt, though. Nicholas fishes one out at random, brushes the dust off, takes a pen out of his pocket, and sits down.  
Well, someone has to do it.

 

Janine rings on Thursday, just as he’s getting into the car. Visiting hours are almost over, but he takes the call anyway, sitting down on the front step of the cottage. Turns out it’s quite lovely. The cottage, not the step. The latter is quite cold and a bit stony, despite its best efforts, rather like Janine’s voice.

Is everything all right, she says.

Yeah, he says.

Are you sure, she says, rattling off all the people she’s talked to about the ‘incident’, and what they’ve said, and is that bit about the model village and the swan –

He tells her he has to go, hangs up. Sits for a bit longer on the step and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper, looks at it for a bit. It’s charred and yellowed by the fire, but ‘Butterman’ was just about visible below the top edge. Nicholas pulls his pen out, chews at it.

Then he puts his pen back, gets up, and into the car. It’s a bit of a drive to the hospital, after all.

 

 

Danny isn’t really sleeping, but it’s easy to forget that. There’s a peace lily on his nightstand, and Nicholas has tried to tell the nursing staff about the importance of a proper watering regimen, but he doesn’t trust they’re keeping to it. The edges of the leaves are going yellow, despite his best efforts; visiting hours are only twice a day, and they tend to look odd at you when you pop in at 11.30 with a watering can.

They’ve given him a proper, new set of forms now, and the office is being set up again, though no one has bothered coming in regular just yet. For now, the box stands in his empty office, going down by just a little every day. Well, someone has to do it.

When he sits in the chair by the bed, it’s easy to see Danny’s breathing. Up and down, like keeping time. Nicholas works his way through half a dozen reports, taking care that none of them are Danny’s close relations. He’s still got the list.

The nurse smiles at him when she comes in, and Nicholas knows his cue. He leaves the pen. There are plenty back at the office anyway.

 

His mum calls on Sunday, and he can’t avoid her like he has everyone else. They chat about nothing in particular, while Nicholas taps his blue pen on the table. His black pen is at work, red at the hospital. He finds himself wondering if he should have left the blue there, if that made a difference either way, and he realizes he’s not listening.

Are you all right, she asks him again.

Yeah, he replies. Just, you know, there’s a considerable amount of paperwork.

 

Most everyone is in by Monday, and none of them have remembered what he told them about the filing process, or forms, or any part of the proper procedure for this sort of thing. (Then again, there’s very little precedent for this sort of thing, even in the book. Nicholas has checked.) The Andies get bored about ten minutes in, and start duct taping things to the brand new filing cabinets. If Danny were here, Nicholas would have laughed along, but Danny isn’t here.

That’s the point.

After he gives a misspelled form back to the wrong Turner for the third time, Nicholas steps out for a moment. There’s a lovely back yard, with hedges and little blue and white flowers Nicholas doesn’t know the name of. He only really knows about lilies, and really only the one type. That’s no way to do gardening. The cottage has a garden.

Saxon comes running out with something white in his mouth, sheets of paper flying. Nicholas sighs, and walks reluctantly back to the cacophony inside.

 

He’s at the garden center in Buford Abbey when he gets the call. Danny grins at him when Nicholas arrives, out of breath and with a bag full of saplings. You planting trees then, Danny asks, like they’re just meeting at the pub.

Nicholas shrugs. Well, he says, we have incurred a considerable amount of paperwork.


End file.
